Abigail Chandler has written her stuffy Boston relatives that she's a successful opera singer in New York. In reality, she works at a burlesque house and is billed as High-C Susie. When her sister Martha comes for a visit, Abigail tries to hide the truth from her.

A man, disillusioned with his life and bored by his surroundings, mysteriously finds himself in a barren desert. After making his way back to civilization, and encountering a handful of local personalities, the man decides to abandon his former life and reinvent himself as the owner of a junkyard in a ghost town. After his initial euphoria subsides, loneliness and boredom set in, and the man is compelled to spend a few days in a nearby town. There he meets a waitress and her brother, who introduce him to another form of desert existence.